The Golden Nail
by Chaos10
Summary: A short piece on how Sara has been mistreated by Grissom and TPTB
1. Default Chapter

Title: The Golden Nail  
  
Author: Chaos  
  
Summary: Just a wierd little thing that came to me after tonight's ep. I still want to know what they've done with the real Gil Grissom.  
  
Warnings: Sara is my favorite character and this little ditty is all about her and how she's been mistreated by the lab (and TPTB) if you don't like Sara DON'T READ THIS! Also, couldn't come up with a good title so I mixed the final spike in a railroad line (purported to be a 'golden' spike) with a statement I've included in the story.  
  
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Carvallo entered Grissom's office without knocking. He ignored the glare thrown at him by the man behind the desk and tossed a paper atop every thing that was already there.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"Sidle's resignation."  
  
Grissom jerked. "She hasn't said anything to me about resigning!"  
  
"She didn't have to. She brought it straight to me." Carvallo informed him.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I'm the lab director. I'd ultimately have to sign off on it any way."  
  
"No. Why is she threatening to leave this time?"  
  
Carvallo sat down and leaned back in the visitor's chair. "You pulled Sidle off a murder investigation to help on a case where Brown and a police officer messed up?"  
  
"Yes. It was a judgement call, an emergency situation. We only had 24 hours to prove our case so I needed everyone's help." Grissom tried to justify his actions.  
  
"Well, I hope it was worth it. Did you know that the suspect was able to leave the country because you pulled Sidle at a critical point? Did you know that the family of that murder victim is now suing Sara for incompetence. Not suing the lab, not suing you although you were the reason she couldn't do her job. They are personally suing her." Carvallo looked as though he had stepped in something nasty. "Congratulations, you just lost the best CSI we have here."  
  
"She, she..." Grissom couldn't believe what was happening.  
  
"She now feels that she is not competent enough to do the job any longer. Nor does she believe that she will ever be taken seriously when she has to go to court on a case, she thinks it will always be brought up that she's being sued for neglecting her cases. Of course, you don't have to worry, you still have Brown and Willows. And of course Stokes will still be here. Now you don't have to worry about who gets promoted, do you? Too bad it's not the only person who actually deserves it." Carvallo got up to leave.  
  
"Where is she?"  
  
"She left my office earlier. She indicated that she would be leaving as soon as she works out an arrangement to pay whatever these people are demanding of her." He walked to the door. "Oh, don't be expecting a request for a reference. She's decided not to try for a job as a CSI any where else."  
  
Grissom sat there staring into space. He had thought he was doing what was best at the time. He remembered now that she had tried to tell him that she was working on something but he had cut her off. Damn! He had treated her like a rookie who had no experience and Catherine had congratulated him on it. He had ruined the career of a very gifted person and, he realized, this was just the final nail in a coffin he had been building for her since he called her to his side. 


	2. The Golden Nail:Just a little bit of rus...

Title: The Golden Nail: Just a little bit of rust  
  
Author: Chaos  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or any of its characters and if I did a certain blonde would've been fired a long time ago.  
  
Summary: A continuation of Sara's travails.  
  
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Grissom sat there for a few minutes wondering what he was supposed to do now. He realized he had a big hand in what went down but he had no idea how to go about fixing it.  
  
He sighed deeply then rose to give his remaining team their assignments. Nick, Warrick and Greg were playing a video game when he walked in. Catherine was on the phone with who appeared to be Lindsey. She hung up when she saw him. "Okay, people we have a heavy case load tonight so everyone except Greg will be going solo." "Where's Sara?" Greg asked. "She's off tonight." "She's off? A heavy night and she just takes off at the last minute?" Catherine lambasted. "Catherine, you and I are going to have a discussion before you go out. But for now, Nick you have a B&E at The Bellagio check in with the desk clerk, Warrick , a DB behind Lanes Liquor, take Greg with you. And you Catherine have a vandelism in the parking lot of Delows." "You've got to be kidding me! Warrick gets a dead body and you want me to do a vandalism. No!" Grissom squinted at her. "Do you remember what you said to me a couple of weeks ago?"  
  
"Give me a hint." "Guys, go." He gave them all a look that said do it now. "Catherine, remember when you congratulated me for being tough on Sara? How good it was for me to act that way?" He waited until she nodded, "Well, you were wrong and so was I." "Bullshit." "You only said it because it was Sara at the end of my temper. Of course, I should have done it earlier when she managed to get an innocent man killed by shooting off her mouth to a victims husband. Oh, wait that was you. But, I could have done it when she investigated her husband's rape charge after I told her specifically not to except that was you, too. Then again she jumped her teammate when the good for nothing bastard was killed and a case couldn't be made, not that she had never not been able to close a case herself. Or maybe when she let her murdering father get away by doing an illegal test. But, once again I forget, that wasn't her either it was you. The only person on this team that I have HAD to cover for has been you and it will not happen again. I know how you've treated Sara and the only person who's treated her worse has been me. Now, you have a crime scene to investigate." "You are being an ass and you owe me an apology!" Catherine was in his face. "The only thing I really owe you is a massive write up in your record about your multitude of mistakes but then again I'd have to write myself up, too."  
  
The sound of a throat clearing was heard. They both turned to see Brass standing in the doorway. "Gil, Catherine. Where is Sara?" "She took the night off. What do you need, Jim?" Grissom asked hoping it was something that would help him lure her back. Brass sighed. "That murder investigation she was on when Warrick's case blew up? I just got a call from Gilpin County, Colorado. They had a double homicide, a 52 year old female and her 6 year old granddaughter. Their crew was on the ball and the guy was picked up at Golden airport." He looked straight at Grissom, "When they ran it through VICAP they got a hit on the fingerprints as having been a suspect here. They found a one way ticket on him from Vegas. His flight left less than three hours before Sara was able to get back to the case. According to our lab his fingerprints were identified at 8 p.m. If she was on her case we could have gotten him before he left . We could have prevented the death of a 6 year old child, Grissom! Do you have any idea what that's going to look like if it ever gets out?" Grissom closed his eyes as he emitted a haggard sigh. 


	3. The Golden Nail:Slightly bent

Title: The Golden Nail:Slightly bent  
  
Author: Chaos  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything CSI except the CD's I purchased.  
  
Summary: Will Grissom ever get it?  
  
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Grissom exited the building to an ambush. Cameras and microphones were shoved in his face, questions were screamed at him from all sides. Sheriff Atwater made his way to the stairs to stand beside him. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you would ask your questions one at a time we will try to give you satisfactory answers." He pointed at a blonde standing in the front of the mob. "We understand one of your CSIs is being sued for dereliction of duty. Is that why you fired her?" Gil stared at her aghast. "Ms. Sidle was not neglecting her case, I suspended work on other cases so that we could work on the investigation of the Lyford murder ." "So, certain murder victims get preferential treatment at your disgression?" A man of his own age shouted. "No! We don't put any case before another unless there are special circumstances such as this one. We only had 24 hours to solve it." "And, there was no one else on your staff that could have helped? Were all of your staff pulled off of murder investigations to help out on this one?" "No, the others were working on cases that did not involve murder." "So, why did you fire her?" "Sara Sidle was not fired. She did, however, resign earlier today." "What were her reasons? Did it have anything to do with the fact that she let the suspect get away to commit these murders in Colorado?" "Once again that was not Ms. Sidle's fault. I am her supervisor I assign cases." He was getting pissed. "But, you pulled her off of the next murder she was assigned. You must not have had any confidence in her abilities if you replaced her with someone else?" He was speechless. How do these people find out about this? "Ms. Sidle resigned through my office and the office of Director Cavallo earlier today." The sheriff jumped in. "She felt responsible for the subject getting away. She also had some problems with the way the Las Vegas lab was being run. Her concerns have been brought to my attention several times since I gained my position here although this was the first time I heard them from her. I will be looking into the charges of favoritism as well as the fact that supervisor Grissom tends to cover for one of his staff everytime she makes a mistake. Ms. Sidle is an excellent criminilist, she in fact has the highest solve rate at this lab and we will be at a great loss by her leaving. I wish her well in whatever she decides to persue." He ignored Grissom's stare. He would give the man the complete run down later. When he felt like it. He stepped back through the door and motioned Grissom to follow him. Taking out his phone he directed someone on the other end to send deputies over to handle the crowd outside. He then quickly walked away. Grissom followed him, "Sheriff, exactly what were Sara's reasons for leaving? She never said anything to me about being unhappy." He heard a snort from his left. "You have something to say , Mr. Hodges?" The lab tech shook his head. "Naw, boss, nobody listens to me anyway." He stepped back into his lab leaving Grissom to ponder whether the tech's opinion would shed any light on what was happening or if he was just trying to grab his supervisor's attention again. He finally decided that he needed to get on with his own assignment then he had to try to get in touch with Sara.  
  
Grissom walked into the MGM Grand and met Brass behind a roulette table. "Gil. We have one Micah Gillely, 36 years of age, no apparent cause of death. Keeled over in the middle of a spin. Everyone who was at the table are in the small crowd to our right, people at nearby tables are to the left. Divide and conquer?" He raised his eyebrows. Grissom nodded and took out his gloves and tweezers. A quick once over didn't seem to provide any evidence and he felt he was going to have to wait for the coroners report to know anything. He should've let Nick have this one. He could hear Brass speaking with the roulette players. They all gave the same account , the guy was doing his job, trading jokes with some of the gamblers when he suddenly dropped. No warning of pain, no apparent shortness of breath, no one close enough to injure him. What fun. They finished up their individual tasks. When Grissom finally joined Brass en route to the manager's office to recover video tapes the detective broached the subject. "Why didn't you tell me Sara had resigned when I asked earlier? Was there a reason you wanted me to think she just took the night off?" Grissom gave one of those depressed sighs. "I was hoping I could talk her in to coming back." Brass laughed. "I don't think that's ever going to happen, Gil. She's had all she can take. I think she's doing what's best for her. I'm just sorry to hear that she's giving up forensics. Even if we can no longer benefit from her knowledge someone should be able to. Wasting all that passion and knowledge is sad." "What do you know about this? Did you talk to her? What did she say?" Grissom rapid fired his questions. "Nope. Haven't seen her. I wanted to, wanted to let her know it wasn't her fault that he killed again but I couldn't find her. She's not at home, she's definitely not at the office and I have no idea where else to find her. Do you?" Grissom shook his head. Brass huffed. "Yeah, I didn't think you would." 


End file.
